Since the blocks of wood that make up this puzzle are all the same size and shape, this puzzle is easy to cut out. But beware—once the painted pieces have been jumbled, they are very difficult to put together in proper order, even if you follow the winding paths formed by the graphic clues throughout the design.

Materials

The block puzzle consists of thirty-five pieces of clear pine, each measuring 3/4 by 1&  5/8  by 3 & 1/4 inches. To make them, you will need 10 feet of l-by-2-inch clear pine, cut into 3 & 1/4-inch-long pieces. Most lumberyards will do the cutting for a slight additional charge. However, to ensure accurate measuring, you may want to cut the lumber yourself. Be sure to measure and mark the wood carefully, using a square and allowing for the width of the saw cuts. In addition to the lumber, you will need:
medium- and fine-grade sandpaper;
a piece of 11 & 3/8 -by- 16 & 1/4 -inch paper;
ruler;
11 & 3/8 by-16 & 1/4-inch carbon paper;
and masking tape.

To decorate the blocks, you will need:
a small can of liquid gesso to seal the wood and prepare it for painting;
acrylic paint in four contrasting colors;
medium and small fine-pointed paintbrushes;
and a spray can of clear acrylic sealer.

Making the Puzzle

Smooth the surfaces and edges of each wood block with sandpaper, progressing from medium- to fine-grade. Be careful not to round the edges as you sand, or they will not butt properly when the puzzle is assembled. When the sanding is done, assemble the blocks into the puzzle shape to make sure they have been cut to the proper size. Follow the heavy lines in the pattern below, fitting the pieces together to form an 11 & 3/8-by-l6 & 1/4-inch rectangle. Wipe off the sanding dust, and cover the work surface beneath the blocks with sheets of newspaper to protect it. Apply a coat of gesso to the blocks, painting across the grain of the wood. Cover all six sides of each block, letting each side dry before going on to the next. Then give each block a second coat of gesso, painting with the grain. Let the gesso dry thoroughly.

While the blocks are drying, enlarge the pattern below for painting the puzzle (click on image for full size)

Enlarge the design for the block puzzle by drawing a 1/4-inch grid on a sheet of 13-by-9-inch paper. Transfer the design to the paper, one square at a time. The light lines outline how the puzzle pieces are painted; the heavy lines indicate the separate blocks.

When the blocks are dry, assemble them into the 11& 3/8 -by-16 & 1/4-inch rectangle, again referring to the heavy lines in the diagram above. Wrap tape around the perimeter of the puzzle so the pieces will not shift. Place a piece of carbon paper, carbon face down, on the assembled puzzle and place the pattern, face up, over the carbon paper. With edges matched, tape the pattern and carbon paper in place. Using a sharp pointed pencil, go over the pattern outlines, transferring them to the gessoed surface. If you use a colored pencil to do this, the color will help you keep track of which lines you have transferred. When the pattern has been completely transferred, remove the pattern and unwrap the tape.

Using the color photograph as a guide, paint in the design. Use the medium-size brush for the large areas and the small brush for details. Let each area dry before painting any areas adjacent to it. When the top surface has been completely painted, paint the remaining five surfaces of each block in one color, again letting each surface dry before going on to the next. Finally, apply several coats of the acrylic spray, letting it dry between coats.

Tangram Play

Although the tangram is related to the jigsaw puzzle in that pieces are jumbled up and then put together again, there the relationship ends.

A jigsaw puzzle consists of many convoluted, frequently arbitrarily shaped pieces that fit together in only one way to make a predetermined configuration. But fitting the seven jumbled tangram pieces together to form the original square is only one of many possibilities.

The tangram has only seven simple geometric shapes, but these can be used to form an almost infinite variety of configurations, and to pose several types of challenges for both adults and children.
On one level of play, you are asked to figure out how a given configuration was obtained. Below are the silhouettes of five configurations: a man, a fish, a bird, an arrow, and a long-necked animal. See if you can form the same silhouettes with your set of tans. You may also enjoy tangram races (you need several sets of tans) to see who can solve a tangram fastest.

Duplicating other people’s designs, although a challenge, is but half the fun of playing with tangrams. The other half, of course, lies in inventing designs of your own. The seven little geometric shapes can be arranged to make whimsical animal or human portraits. They can be combined to make delicately graceful shapes or amusing caricatures, to represent real objects or purely abstract designs. Making
these configurations requires intuition, artistic vision, and imagination. For this reason, tangram play is a good way to stimulate a child’s creativity. Children can amuse themselves for hours designing tangram cats, birds, people, and boats. The outlines of their original designs can be traced onto paper so friends can be challenged to reproduce them. On a more abstract level, many adults are fascinated by the paradox apparent in forming symmetrical configurations from an odd number of pieces, and amazed at the subtleness with which curves and details can be suggested where in actuality there are none.

To Make a Set of Tans

A tangram—the word refers both to the pieces of the puzzle and to any configuration made with them—consists of seven pieces. These pieces, or tans, are made from one square, which is cut to yield two small triangles, one medium-sized triangle, two large triangles, one square, and one rhomboid.

To make your own set of tans, you will need a square of hardboard, particle board, plywood or heavy cardboard of any size (the set pictured above began as a 12-inch square of hardboard). You will also need: a pencil; ruler; saw (or craft knife if you are using cardboard); fine-grade sandpaper; enamel or acrylic paint; paintbrush; and sheets of newspaper to protect the work surface.

To begin, mark the cutting lines on one side of the tangram square, following the directions below.

to make a square for a set of tans, use pencil and ruler to divide it as follows: bisect lines a-d and c-d, and draw line e-f to connect these points; place the ruler diagonally across (from point d to point b) and draw line g-b; draw a diagonal line connecting points a and c; divide line a-c into quarters and draw line g-h and line e-i.

When the lines have been marked, cut out the pieces, keeping the edges as straight as possible. Sand the edges smooth (even cardboard edges improve with sanding). Cover the work surface with newspaper. Put several coats of paint on edges and both sides of the pieces, letting them dry between coats.

Now that you have your set of tans, try your hand at duplicating the tangram at the top. Remember that you must use all seven tans, no more, no less. If any of them seem impossible to reproduce, flip the rhomboid over and try again. Still stumped? Click Here for the solution

The counter puzzle seems simple. It consists of six movable disks (the counters) in a wooden frame. It doesn’t seem much of a challenge—not at first, that is.

When you begin, the disks are arranged from 1 to 6 with a space in the middle, as pictured above. The object of the puzzle is to rearrange them so they read 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, in as few moves as possible. You can move a counter by sliding it into an empty square or by jumping one counter over another, as in checkers, but only one counter may be moved at a time. One solution to the puzzles is found by Clicking Here and takes 15 moves. Does yours take less?

In construction, the counter puzzle can be as elaborate or as simple as you like. A puzzle made of wood, with painted numbers and squares, will stand up to many a challenger. One that works just as well but is not so durable, handsome, or pleasurable to the touch, can be made from paper or cardboard with the numbers and squares indicated with a pen or felt-tipped marker. The instructions that follow are for making the wooden puzzle above.

Materials
To make this puzzle you will need: 3 feet of 1-by-1- or l-by-2-inch clear pine; a 7 7/8 -by- 1 1/8 inch piece of 1/4 -inch plywood; a 4- to 5-inch wooden dowel, 1 1/8 inches in diameter; a saw and miter box; and medium and fine sandpaper.

To finish the disks and frame you will need: pencil, ruler, tracing paper, large and small fine-tipped paintbrushes, enamel or acrylic paint in two contrasting colors, and wood glue.

Making the Puzzle

Using a miterbox, cut the pine strips for the puzzle frame, carefully mitering the ends on a 45-degree angle and following the dimensions given in Figure E.

These are the inside measurements of the frame. These figures will be the same whether you use 1-by-1-or 1-by-2-inch wood. Cut the dowel into six 1/2-inch thick disks. Sand a 1/8-inch sliver from the bottom rim of each disk so that it will fit upright but will not stick in the 1 1/2-inch-wide slot, as shown in the photograph. Sand all of the parts—the frame, the plywood bottom, and the counters—progressing from medium to fine sandpaper.

Trace the numbers given in Figure D onto a sheet of tracing paper. (click on the image for full size pattern)

Rub a soft lead pencil over the back of the tracing to deposit a layer of graphite which will act as carbon paper. Place each graphite-backed number on a disk, and go over the outline of the number with a sharp pencil to transfer it to the disk. Using a small, finepointed paintbrush, fill in the numbers with acrylic paint or enamel. Apply several coats if necessary, letting the paint dry between applications.

With pencil and ruler, divide the plywood that will form the bottom of the frame into seven 1 1/8-inch squares. Paint the squares, alternating the two colors.

To assemble the puzzle, refer to Figure E – miter four strips of pine on a 45-degree angle, and glue them together at the corners to form a frame that measures 1 1/8 by 7 7/8 inches on its inner perimeter. Let dry; then apply glue on all the edges of the plywood bottom, and insert it in the frame to get a flush bottom, with the painted plywood surface recessed.
(refer also to the directions on the glue package. Let the glue dry thoroughly before using the game board.)

There are two aspects of crossword puzzles—constructing them and solving them.

Constructing The Puzzle

The first step in constructing a crossword puzzle is to get a crossword diagram. One way is to copy a diagram from a newspaper, magazine, or book—you might start with the one shown here:

If you want to start from scratch and make your own diagram, use pen and ruler to draw the basic grid. That way the diagram won’t be erased along with the letters if you make changes (as is likely) and the lines will be neat and straight, an immeasurable aid to legibility.

When all the squares have been drawn, ink some in to form a symmetrical pattern. Give careful thought to the placement of the black squares. Avoid having three long words (seven or more characters) adjacent to each other. For example, in the diagram above, 17 Across and 20 Across are two relatively long words, one on top of the other. If the square directly above 18 Down were not blackened, an 8-character word would lie directly above 17 Across. This would create difficulties for the constructor.

He would have to find three long horizontal words whose letters become part of several vertical words. This would be a formidable task for anyone to accomplish, novice or expert.

Assigning Numbers

When the puzzle has been blocked out, assign numbers to the appropriate squares. Traditionally, the numbers run consecutively from left to right and are placed in the upper left-hand corner of the squares. To begin, number each of the blank squares in the top row across. In subsequent rows, the only squares that receive numbers are those where a horizontal or vertical word starts. (take a look at the diagram above)

Filling in the Words

Now begins the fun—filling in the blanks with interlocking words. When two words interlock, they share a letter. For example, in the diagram below, the words desire and limits share the letter i.

Examine your diagram, and note where the longest words occur. Fill these in first. Once you have filled in a long word, complete the words that interlock with it. In doing so, try to provide suitable interlocking letters for the next group of words. This calls for a knack that comes mostly with experience.

For a start, avoid using a word that would call for an interlocking word that ends in an unlikely letter, such as b, f , or i. Select words in which consonants and vowels alternate (they tend to blend better). Occasionally you may be forced to resort to a proper name, an abbreviation, or an obscurity to complete the puzzle. These are acceptable devices but should be kept to a minimum. Finally, use a word list. This is a tremendous aid to a puzzle constructor and can save you hours of ransacking the dictionary for an elusive word. In these lists, words are arranged according to the number of letters they contain, as well as alphabetically. Check your bookstore for a crossword puzzle dictionary to find the lists you’ll need.

Figure B above shows a partially worked fragment of the diagram given in Figure A at the top of the post. The word limits was the first to be filled in because it is one of the longest words that appear. The next word filled in, desire, is also six characters long and has been vertically placed so it interlocks with limits. Cent and den came next. The next longest is a five-letter word, 40 Down, and the first and third letters (c and m) have been established by the words already filled in. Since consonants should alternate with vowels, we need a word that has a vowel between the c and m. At this point, a word list might be consulted for a word that suits the diagram.

In the section on five-letter words beginning with the letter c, a good word list will have: colic, colon, color, comer, comet, comma, compo, conch, conga. Of the possibilities in this list, comer, comet, comic, comma, and compo, comma and compo can be dismissed as unsuitable because they would result in a vowel in front of the last e in desire. Very few four letter words begin with ae or oe. Comic might also be ignored, because we have already used a four-letter word above beginning with ce (cent) and we want to avoid the duplication that would occur at 55 Across. This leaves comer and comet, and the final choice was comet, though comer could also have been used successfully.

Supplying Definitions

When you have finished your diagram, you must supply definitions in proper numerical order for both horizontal and vertical words. A filled-in diagram and list of definitions are shown in Figure C at the bottom of this post. Keep these definitions as short as you can unless you are doing a special kind of puzzle. The puzzle can be as hard or easy as you want to make it; positioning difficult words so they cross each other avoids giving interlocking clues and thus makes the puzzle harder to solve. For a long time, the British have favored puns, anagrams, and other tricky complications in their crosswords. The definitions, however, should be straightforward and free of ambiguity.

You will find in selecting definitions, that synonym books are helpful, or you can use the crossword puzzle dictionary.

One final instruction—prepare two copies of your diagram, one a blank for the solver and the other the answer diagram. It is not necessary that the latter reproduce the numbers in the squares, as it will be obvious where they belong. In fact, just the letters themselves in their proper configuration will suffice.(Omitting the numbers from the solution diagrams is often done to save time and space in crossword puzzle magazines.)

Solutions

After all of this, you may decide it is harder to make a puzzle than to solve one. Perhaps it is, but even expert puzzle-makers occasionally get stumped when they change roles to become puzzle-solvers. Again, there are some shortcuts to success.

One thing in your favor as a solver is that the letters of the words interlock. If you guess one word, you should try to find the words that cross it, and radiate your solution from that point. Do not waste time at any one point in the diagram if you cannot think of the word. Just go on to another point. Eventually all the words will interlock, providing clues for others as each is discovered.

Like the constructor, the solver can use a dictionary, synonym book, and word lists to expedite the solution.

A word of warning to both constructor and solver. Use a pencil with a good eraser unless you are a whiz who can confidently and quickly demolish a crossword with a ballpoint pen!

Grab a pencil. Draw six lines like this:

Now see if you can add five more lines, making nine.

If this type of mental play intrigues you, we think we’ve got your number. You like to solve problems, find answers to questions. You positively itch to baffle and mystify, or better yet, be baffled and mystified. In short, you are a puzzle person and won’t be able to resist arranging twenty-four matches to make nine squares like this:

… and trying to remove eight matches so you are left with only two squares.

Nor will you be able to put down your pencil until you have duplicated the following drawing with one continuous line, not lifting the pencil point off the paper or retracing any line:

Are you ready for more? The projects to celebrate this month will tell you how to construct and solve crossword puzzles, tangrams, a counter puzzle, jigsaw puzzles, and a puzzle made from wooden blocks.

Incidentally, the solution to these three puzzles can be found by Clicking Here, but a true puzzle person will turn to that page only as a last resort!